


Advantage

by sospes



Series: Familitas [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Found Family, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, I Feel Bad Using That Tag, Idiots in Love, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Miscommunication, Rape, Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:13:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23528962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sospes/pseuds/sospes
Summary: "The drugs have been made specifically for you, to keep you docile. Didn’t want you snapping my neck mid-vengeance, did I?”Vengeance? “I don’t evenknowyou,” Geralt spits.The lordling laughs. “Oh, the revenge wasn’t onyou."Jaskier made a mistake. Geralt suffers the consequences.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Familitas [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640197
Comments: 96
Kudos: 855
Collections: Wendigo & Stag





	Advantage

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, this is pretty heavy at times. Please heed the tags and the warnings. 
> 
> This sits in an odd relationship to the rest of my _Witcher_ fics. It's sort of a companion piece to _[The Public Perception of the Barding Profession](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22455304)_ , in a way (though not in the same universe), but it's also sort of set in the same world as my _[Familitas](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640197)_ series. It was originally part of the _Familitas_ series explicitly, but I've since decided it doesn't fit well enough with the other stories - and it can be read independently, so I've taken it out. 
> 
> I'm a little hesitant to post this, to be honest, because as much as the vast majority of the feedback on _Public Perception_ was very positive, some of it was pretty upsetting. So, you know, please just be kind.

The sun streams in through the open window, dappling gently across the expensive bedspread that’s tangled around Geralt’s legs. There are birds singing somewhere outside, high-pitched and fluttering, and a breeze whispers through the trees, rustling the leaves. It’s warm, height of summer warm, and Geralt shifts as much as he can manage, rolls onto his back, arm thrown across his eyes, dozes a little longer. 

His head is fuzzy and his tongue is thick in his mouth, a sour note at the back of his throat and a headache starting to nudge at his temples. They were at a midsummer banquet last night, he vaguely remembers, Jaskier playing his heart out for the gathered nobles, Geralt watching from the sidelines with pride tight in his chest. The wine flowed free and easy—free and _very_ easy, if the state of his head is anything to go by—and when the night was done, they stumbled upstairs, wrapped in each other and laughing. It’s not entirely clear in Geralt’s memory, if he’s honest—gods, he must have drunk a _lot_ —but he remembers Jaskier’s weight in his arms, remembers pressing him down into the mattress, remembers the warmth of his mouth and his gasp as he sank into him. 

The bed dips next to Geralt, and a warm hand slides down his chest, fingers teasing at his nipple. 

Geralt shifts, starts to pull his arm away from his face, but then another hand stills him, presses his forearm into place across his eyes. A soft voice, a little deeper than Jaskier’s usual post-performance rasp—must have been a _lot_ of alcohol—says, “Keep them closed.” 

Geralt’s still only half awake, dancing on the edge of consciousness, revelling in the expensive sheets and the surprisingly pleasant post-alcohol haze in his mind, so he does as he’s told. There’s a pleased hum and then those hands are back, tracing down his chest and stomach, stripping away the knotted sheets, leaving him naked and exposed in the soft morning light. Fingers wrap around his half-hard cock, stroking almost tentatively, and then warm lips settle around the head and Geralt groans, soft in the quiet. 

He lies there, head thrown back against the pillows, and soaks up the pleasure like a starving man. 

The mouth disappears, leaving his cock wet with spit, and after a moment slick fingers grip him tighter, firmer. The weight on the bed shifts, settles across Geralt’s thighs, and then his cock is sinking into that familiar tight warmth, still fucked open from last night, slippery with fresh oil. Geralt groans again, nostrils flaring, and says, “ _Jaskier_ ,” with all the tenderness and affection and heat that flares heavy in his heart. 

There’s a soft laugh, rougher, darker, and that same too-deep voice says, “Not quite, witcher.” 

Geralt’s eyes fly open. 

It’s not Jaskier. The man is naked and flushed and he’s riding Geralt like a prize stallion, blond hair sticking to his forehead, eyes bright green and pupils blown wide with lust – and he’s _not Jaskier._

“What the fuck?” Geralt spits, shoves himself up on his elbows, pushes the stranger off him, springs to his feet and gets the fuck out of there – or, at least, he tries to do all that but his body doesn’t obey him, doesn’t listen. His hands scrabble for purchase on the silky sheets but there’s no strength in his muscles, no responsiveness in his limbs – and, oh, shit, fuck, that fuzziness in his head, it’s not a hangover, no, it’s not a hangover _at all_. 

The man laughs, hips rolling at a bruising pace, lazily stroking his own erection. “Hello there, witcher,” he says, a cruel twist to his lips. “Good of you to join me. You’ve been a little, well, out of it since I had you drugged last night. Seemed to think I was someone else _entirely_. Made for a very interesting experience, I have to say.” 

Geralt snarls. “Get the fuck off me,” he snaps, but the man shows no signs of stopping – and, if anything, he strokes himself faster. “ _Get off_.”

“Take it easy, witcher,” the man says. “This won’t take long.” He shifts his rhythm, lets out a soft moan. “I only meant to have you the once,” he says, sweat sheening on his forehead. “It was only supposed to be a show, _ah_. But then you fucked me so _tenderly_ last night when you thought I was your lover, and I just couldn’t give up the chance of having you inside me again – _oh_.” He throws his head back, groans. 

“Who the fuck _are_ you?” Geralt spits, trying to get his legs to respond with the appropriate level of violence. All he can do is roll his calves listlessly side to side. He pushes at the stranger’s thighs but his hands have no force, all his strength, gone, wasted. 

The stranger bares his teeth in a victorious smile. “You live up to your reputation, witcher,” he says. “Unobservant to a fault. I’m the lord of the Ainsborough lands – but, given I’ve got your cock so deep in me right now I can practically taste it, you can call me Paulus.” His forehead furrows as he snaps his hips, and he gasps out a sigh. “ _Fuck_ , yeah, that’s it. Oh, gods, I’m gonna come.” 

“ _Get the fuck off me._ ” 

Paulus ignores him, works his cock faster, and comes with a shout, spilling hot and salty across Geralt’s chest. He sits back with a sigh, clenching around Geralt’s cock, then says, rich and satisfied, “I assume you won’t mind if I don’t finish you off.” 

“Fuck off,” Geralt bites out, finally managing to hoist himself up onto his elbows, arms shaking with the effort. 

Paulus laughs. He moves away, Geralt’s cock sliding out of him with a slick squelch, and takes a washcloth out of the basin sitting on a side table, wipes the sweat from his forehead. He shows no intention of extending the favour to Geralt, who’s propped up on his elbows, teeth gritted as he tries to force his body to move. Paulus eyes him, still naked, then rakes a hand through his golden hair and says, “There’s not much point in trying to get up, witcher. You’ve got another couple of hours, I’d imagine, before you can do much more than roll around on that bed.” He shrugs, picks up a goblet from the table, sips delicately. “I had a while to prepare for this. The drugs have been made specifically for you, to keep you docile – suggestive when I want you to be suggestive, nice and limp when I want you to be nice and limp. Didn’t want you snapping my neck mid-vengeance, did I?” 

Vengeance? “I don’t even _know_ you,” Geralt spits. 

Paulus laughs, then retrieves a pair of expensive-looking silk trousers from where they’re draped over the back of a chair. “Oh, the revenge wasn’t on _you_ ,” he explains, starting to dress himself. “No, you were just a convenient tool.” He eyes Geralt’s cock, now flaccid between his legs. “With an extremely satisfying tool of his own,” he murmurs to himself, lacing up his trousers. “That was an… unexpected bonus, I have to say.” 

It hits Geralt like a sledgehammer. “Where the fuck is Jaskier?” he barks, although he imagines that the attempt at intimidation in his voice is somewhat undercut by the fact that he can barely move. 

“Ah, there it is,” Paulus says, pulling a carefully-embroidered shirt on over his head. “ _Realisation._ Maybe you’re not as dense as the whole muscle-man exterior suggests.” 

“ _Where is he?_ ” 

Paulus tuts, steps forward, presses his fingertips to the centre of Geralt’s forehead and pushes him back down to the bed with barely any effort at all. “Right now?” he asks, twirling a lock of Geralt’s hair around his fingertip. “He’s in the stables, being beaten within an inch of his life by three of my guards.” He pauses, flicks Geralt’s hair free of his fingers, goes to shrug into his doublet. “He was here last night, though,” he says, the green of his eyes sparking even brighter against the red of his clothes. “Held down by my guards as you fucked me so _lovingly_ , thinking I was him.” 

“You _bastard_.” 

Paulus laughs. “How romantic,” he says, bitter and dry. “That’s what he said, too. ‘ _Let him go, you bastard_ ’,” he simpers. “ ‘ _It’s me you want, don’t do this_.’ And then he’d just whimper your name, ‘ _oh, Geralt_ ’, so pathetic, ‘ _oh, Geralt, I love you_ ’.”

Sickness twists deep in Geralt’s gut. “You fuck.” 

Paulus adjusts the hem of his doublet, then runs a hand through his hair again and studies his reflection in the mirror. “I’m going to go see how your lover is doing, witcher,” he says. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill him. And I’m not going to keep him from you, either: when the drugs wear off, you’re welcome to bathe and get something to eat. The servants will look after you, then you’ll be escorted off the property when you’re ready. I’ll have the bard dumped at the gates – you’ll find him there soon enough.” 

“Why are you doing this?” Geralt husks, his gut churning, hands clenching into loose fists. 

“He fucked my wife,” Paulus says, suddenly icy, “the night before our wedding.” He slides rings onto his fingers, careful, exacting. “It seemed only fitting that I get to fuck something of his in return.” 

Geralt bares his teeth. “Don’t touch him.” 

Paulus snorts. “A little late for that, witcher,” he says, and breezes out of the bedroom, leaving Geralt naked and alone, limbs useless, body useless, drying come splattered across his chest. 

Geralt remembers Jaskier last night, bright and laughing, lute in his hands, song on his lips. He span around the ballroom like a songbird in a cage, flirting with young and old alike, skipping away from overly-affectionate hands and leaning into admiring glances – and Geralt watched, leaning back against the wall, a glass of wine in his hand that kept getting topped up by whichever server walked past him. The beginning of the banquet is clear and sharp, but as the night went on his memory gets… blurry. He remembers fumbling a little, wine splashing onto his shirtsleeve, the smell oddly _sour_ – shit, that must have been it, but he didn’t _notice_ because the smell of the banquet was heavy around him, cloying and overwhelming. 

“Shit,” he bites out, straining as hard as he can just to sit up. 

He remembers stumbling, falling over his own feet, putting it down to the alcohol—except no, it was the fucking drugs—then remembers a hand catching him, heavy and warm against his chest, pulling him up and catching his lips in a kiss. It was Jaskier, it was _definitely_ Jaskier, he would _know_ if it wasn’t Jaskier – because he remembers pulling back, taking his face in his hands, those blue eyes, that dark hair, remembers drinking him in with such a swell of love in his heart. 

Except no, because now that he’s thinking about it, now that he’s not shot through with drugs and alcohol, he remembers his medallion thrumming faintly against his chest. A glamour, it has to be, a fucking _glamour_ , woven skilfully enough to fool a witcher and coupled with enough drugs to floor a horse. 

“Fuck,” he says, managing to heave himself up, grabbing for a corner of the expensive sheet and swiping haphazardly at the mess on his chest. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since that fucking bastard left him here alone, maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour, his head is still fuzzy enough that time is passing strangely – but his body is feeling distinctly more like his own. He clambers towards the edge of the bed, teeth gritted, breathing heavily, finds his clothes in a pile – and he remembers Jaskier helping him strip them off, fingers eager, laugh dark and strangely bitter in his ear, but of course, no, that wasn’t Jaskier, it looked like him and smelled like him and sounded like him but that’s how glamours _work_ , they get in your head, they use your memories against you.

It used _Geralt’s_ memories against him. 

He dresses slowly, achingly, learning co-ordination again, stumbling out of the bedroom and into the corridor. There are two servants waiting outside, faces schooled into masks of indifference, and one steps forward, says, “Would you like us to draw you a bath?” 

“Take me to the stables,” Geralt says, breathing heavily, grabbing at the wall for stability. 

The servants share a glance. “Your bard isn’t in the stables,” the second says, her voice softer. “Lord Ainsborough finished with him some time ago. I believe he had him… escorted off the premises.” 

“Dumped outside the gates, you mean,” Geralt snarls. 

The servants don’t react. “We’ll have your horse brought around,” the first one says, his expression unchanging. “Then we’ll show you where to go.” 

Geralt doesn’t trust them as far as he can throw them, but he’s not about to say no to that. 

Roach is waiting for him outside the servants’ entrance, and she neighs when she sees him, clearly distressed. Geralt briefly checks that his saddlebags are untouched, runs his fingertips over the hilts of his swords with hands that are, by now, only a little clumsier than usual – but then stutters, pauses, his heart seizing in his chest, because it’s not just his bags strapped to Roach’s sides. Jaskier’s pack is clumsily attached to her saddle, dark fabric embroidered with a spray of flowers worked in gold thread – and his lute case is strapped across her rump, blood flecks spattered across the leather. 

Roach butts her head against his shoulder, wickers insistently, and Geralt realises with a start that she must have _seen_ it, must have _smelled_ it. 

He snarls, swings himself up into the saddle, and follows the servants’ pointing fingers. 

The Ainsborough estate is sprawling, rambling, spreading out across woods and fields and rivers, but there’s a single main road running through it all. Roach barely needs any encouragement to take the road at a gallop, foam flecking her lips, and it’s maybe twenty minutes before the ornamental estate gates loom into view. Geralt hisses through his teeth, pulls Roach to a halt beside the wrought iron monstrosity, then slides down to the ground, takes three steps and crashes to his knees next to the small, still body curled in on itself on the grassy verge. “ _Jaskier_ ,” he says, tight and panicked, rolling Jaskier to face him with all the care he can manage – and, shit, he’s a _mess_. His lips are split, his nose crooked, a bruise blooming around one eye and a long, sluggishly-oozing cut across his forehead. His bright, flashy performing clothes are soaked in blood and sweat and spittle, but as Geralt watches, his eyes crack open, just a little, bright and blue. 

“Geralt,” he whispers, thick and bloody.

He’s alive. Geralt’s heart leaps in his chest. “Jaskier,” he says again, a little obviously, then pulls him close, presses his nose into his hair, breathes in deep, smells the blood and the fear and reassures that tight little knot in his chest that it’s okay, that _they’re_ okay.

Jaskier’s hand comes up limply, rests passively against his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, blood flecking his lips. 

“Keep quiet,” Geralt says, not unkindly. “Save your strength. We’re getting out of here, now.” 

To that, Jaskier offers no objection.

It’s not particularly easy to manhandle Jaskier up onto Roach’s back and then clamber up after him, especially with his body still not at full strength, but Geralt does it as smoothly as he can, wincing at Jaskier’s every whine of pain, every gasp of discomfort. He settles into the saddle behind him, encouraging Jaskier to lean back against his chest, safe in the circle of his arms, then clicks his tongue to Roach and sets off at as easy and gentle a pace as he can manage. Jaskier still cries out as they jolt over the stony ground, then his head sags back against Geralt’s shoulder, eyes half-lidded, breathing harsh. “Fuck, Geralt,” he husks. 

Geralt shushes him, shifts the reins into one hand and brings the other up to rest carefully against Jaskier’s chest. Jaskier flinches at the touch, and Geralt can only imagine the bruises that must be spread across the pale skin beneath. “I’ve got you,” he says, gruff, rough. “It’s okay.” 

Jaskier doesn’t answer. Out of the corner of his eye, Geralt sees the tears that spill freely down his cheeks – and then he sees as Jaskier turns his face away, looks away from Geralt, tension blazingly obvious in the line of his neck, of his shoulders. 

Something cold and apprehensive starts to blossom in Geralt’s gut. 

It’s not far to the nearest village, a small affair with a single inn that they stayed in the night before they left to the Ainsborough banquet. They’d paid for a room for another couple of nights as well, intending to sleep off the inevitable hangover in surroundings a little more comfortable than a pampered’s noble’s palace, so Geralt still has the room key tucked away in his saddlebags. He finds it one handed, practically holding Jaskier upright with his other arm, then fumbles them inside as quickly as he can. The innkeeper takes one look at them and goes to fetch clean water, which Geralt appreciates, and he takes Jaskier upstairs, lays him out on the bed and carefully strips him out of his clothes. Jaskier’s dozing, clearly exhausted, but he makes soft noises under his breath as Geralt cleans the cuts and massages salve into the bruises, as he washes the blood and sweat out of his hair and dresses him in the loosest clothes they have between them. 

Jaskier shifts as Geralt settles him back down on the bed, damp hair curling softly around his bruised features, then groans in pain.

“You’re okay,” Geralt says, smoothing his hand across Jaskier’s forehead. “You’re safe.” 

Jaskier blinks up at him, relaxed and absent for a single heartbeat – and then pain and horror flash bright in his eyes. “Gods, Geralt,” he says, his voice choking – and he _pushes away from Geralt_. 

There’s that chill in his gut again, tight and wrenching. “Jaskier,” he says, trailing off in confusion. 

“I didn’t know,” Jaskier says, his voice shaking. “Geralt, you have to believe me, _I didn’t know_.” 

Geralt’s mouth is dry. “He said you slept with his wife,” he says, and it’s all he can think to say in response but it’s clearly _not the right thing to say_ because that same pain blossoms hot across Jaskier’s face. 

“I did,” Jaskier says, soft, almost numb. “But it was years ago, and I didn’t know she was about to be _married_. I met her at some duke’s stupid party, I was playing and she was watching me with this look in her eyes—you know how people can be when I’m playing—and then she approached me afterwards, invited me to her rooms, and it was before… _us_ , before all of this, so I didn’t think to say no.” He’s shaking his head, borderline frantic. “I didn’t know,” he says, softer, something high and terrified in his voice. “I didn’t know that her husband was a psychotic lunatic, didn’t know what he would _do_.” 

Geralt shifts closer, grips Jaskier’s shoulders, holds him still. “It’s not your fault,” he says, the words bitter and true in his mouth. “Jaskier, _calm down_. It’s not your fault.” 

Jaskier’s answering laugh is hollow. “I wouldn’t have accepted the invitation if I knew what he’d do,” he says, and his hand hovers just above Geralt’s chest, doesn’t come closer, doesn’t touch. “Gods, I would have run to the other end of the _continent_ if I knew what he’d do.” 

“You’ll heal,” Geralt says, reaching for Jaskier’s face, brushing the lightest touch he can manage across the barely-scabbed split in his lip. “You’ve had worse.” 

Jaskier’s eyes are dark and dead. “He made me watch, Geralt,” he says, so soft it’s barely louder than the breeze. “The two of you, last night, he made me _watch_.” 

Geralt’s jaw tightens involuntarily. “I know,” he says. “He told me this morning.” 

Jaskier blinks. “This morning?” he asks, confused. 

Geralt grits his teeth. “Whatever he drugged me with, it was still working this morning,” he says tightly. “Woke up to him… riding me.” Jaskier’s expression floods with horror, and Geralt can’t stand to see that expression on his face, that _betrayal_ , so he just ploughs on: “He’d dropped whatever fucking _glamour_ he was using so he didn’t look like you anymore. Didn’t know it wasn’t you, the first time. I was… drunk and drugged and fucking _tricked_. I didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to fuck him.” 

Jaskier makes a hopeless noise in the back of his throat – and, oh, Geralt should have _known_. He’s a witcher, he can scent a drowner from half a mile away, he should have fucking _known_ that the body he was pressing into the sheets wasn’t Jaskier. “Shit,” Jaskier says, pulling further away, swinging his legs off the bed and turning so his back’s to Geralt. He drops his head into his hands, his shoulders sagging. “This is all my fault.” 

“Jaskier, no, it’s—”

“ _Stop_ , Geralt,” Jaskier says, loud, insistent, and Geralt stops in his tracks, not touching. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say, and he can smell the sourness of Jaskier’s fear and the sharpness of his grief. He wants to fix this, fix his fucking fuck-up, but he doesn’t know how. “I’ll go,” Jaskier says, hollow and empty, shoulders hunched, not looking back at him. “In the morning. I’d leave now if I could, but I don’t think I’m strong enough.” 

“Jaskier—”

“No,” Jaskier interrupts, his voice hitching, panicked. “Don’t.” He doesn’t look at Geralt, he can’t look at Geralt. “I’m going. You can’t make me stay, so please don’t try to.”

Geralt has no idea what to say. 

Jaskier sleeps in the bed that night, curled in on himself like he was on that grassy verge next to the gates to the Ainsborough estate, back to Geralt, shoulders hunched, small. In the morning, he gathers his bags without meeting Geralt’s desperate gaze, slings his blood-spattered lute case onto his back, and leaves, shoulders hunched, steps still a little unsteady. He doesn’t look back.

Geralt goes to the village’s tavern, a low, one-story structure on the outskirts of town, and drinks cheap shitty ale until he can’t feel his heartbeat anymore. 

The road is colder without Jaskier, colder and quieter and darker.

Geralt travels aimlessly for a while, wandering between contracts with no real path in mind, no real destination. They’d been following the course of Jaskier’s performances for a while, now, taking the easy way around as the continent pulled itself back together after war and strife, finding this opportunity to just be with each other for a little while, no Yennefer, no Ciri, no friends or companions or complications, just the two of them and the open road. It’s been so long since Geralt travelled alone that he barely remembers how to do it, and he finds himself sitting at his little campfires in the wilderness, staring at the empty earth next to him and missing the touch that should be there. 

That bastard lord’s mouth around his cock, and then the horror in Jaskier’s eyes, the recoil in his hands. 

Geralt makes his way to the cities, after a while, finds himself in Novigrad with a half-empty purse and a growling stomach. There’s not much by way of contracts here, certainly nothing he wants to deal with on an empty stomach or particularly sober, so he goes to find a tavern – which proves difficult, because the first one he tries is the one that he and Jaskier propped up the bar in for a whole three days a few years before the war, the second one is the one that Jaskier drank so much he vomited in the corner and they got chased out by the angry landlady, and the third serves pies that, Geralt remembers, are Jaskier’s favourite food in pretty much the whole Continent. It’s like Jaskier is fucking following him _everywhere_ , chasing him with his guilt and his self-loathing, and so Geralt finds the shittiest, cheapest, ugliest tavern he can find, one that Jaskier didn’t even notice enough to turn his nose up at, then sits in the darkest corner he can find and drinks. 

It doesn’t stop Yennefer finding him.

She swishes into the dingy alehouse with a regality to her every movement that makes even the dull-witted barkeep sit up and pay attention. She takes one look around, spots Geralt immediately, then orders a jug of their best wine and two glasses to be brought to his table. 

Geralt grunts as the barkeep sets the wine down with shaky hands. “Yen.” 

“Geralt,” Yennefer answers, and pours them both glasses. “I heard that there was a witcher with a face like thunder menacing half the taverns in the city, so I thought I’d come find you.” She takes a sip of her wine, pulls a face, then reaches out, swaps the ale in his hand for a wineglass. “If I have to drink this, so do you. And, from the look on your face, I think you might need it.” 

Geralt sniffs the wine. There’s no sourness there, no whiff of poison, of herbs that shouldn’t be there, but it turns his stomach nonetheless. He pushes the glass away, retrieves his ale. “What do you want, Yen?”

Yennefer studies him for a moment, a crease furrowing her forehead, then says, understanding growing in her voice, “Where’s Jaskier, Geralt?” Geralt doesn’t answer, but his fingers flex tighter around his drink. Yennefer notices, she must do. “The last I heard,” she says, not taking the fucking hint, “the two of you were wandering around Temeria, I think, causing havoc and acting like sickening lovebirds.” Geralt can’t hide his flinch. “So where is he now?” Yennefer asks, softer. 

Geralt drinks. It seems like the best thing to do.

“Don’t make me read your mind.” 

“I fucked up,” Geralt says tightly, partially because he knows that she’s not going to let it go but mainly because, well, shit, she’s better with people than he is so maybe she can fucking _help_. “And he left.”

Yennefer looks surprised. “Is this like your outburst after the dragon hunt with Borch all those years ago?” she asks. “It must be worse, this time. I wouldn’t think there was _anything_ you could do that would drive Jaskier away, after everything.” 

Geralt’s jaw is tight. “I fucked someone else.” 

Anger flashes in Yennefer’s eyes, startled and hot. “What the fuck, Geralt?” she bites. “You _cheated_ on him?” 

Geralt finishes his drink, then gestures to the barkeep for another. The wine still sits at his elbow, untouched, and it’s probably better than the spectacularly awful ale but he can’t quite bring himself to touch it. “Didn’t mean to,” he says. “Didn’t know it wasn’t him.” 

Yennefer frowns. “What do you mean?” 

“I was drugged,” Geralt says bitterly. “Something in the fucking wine. And the arsehole lord was wearing some kind of glamour, made him look like—” His voice dies on Jaskier’s name. He drinks instead. 

“Geralt,” Yennefer says, slow, dangerous, and Geralt can’t be entirely sure because, to be honest, he’s a little drunk right now, but he’s pretty sure that that danger isn’t directed at him anymore. “Are you saying that you were _tricked_ into sleeping with someone who wasn’t Jaskier? _Forced_ into it?” 

Geralt bares his teeth, tries to drink again but abruptly Yennefer stops him, snatching the ale out of his hand and setting it down on the table out of reach. “Yes,” he says finally, bitterly, gazing longingly at his confiscated ale because, fuck, this conversation would be a whole lot easier if he knew he wasn’t going to remember it in the morning.

Abruptly, he flashes on his hazy memories of the Ainsborough banquet, and the once-pleasant fuzz of drunkenness in his head sends a sudden stab of unease through his gut. 

“Why?” Yennefer demands.

“He wanted to hurt Jaskier,” Geralt says, tongue heavy. “Made him watch.” 

“Didn’t Jaskier try to do something?” Yennefer asks, voice pitching higher and tighter with every word. 

“Guards stopped him,” Geralt says. “And whatever they dosed me with kept me down.” 

Yennefer doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and when Geralt dares to look at her, half expecting to see the same loathing that’s set deep in his heart directed back at him, she’s practically vibrating with furious, frantic energy. “Who?” she bites, violet eyes flashing bright. 

“Yen?” Geralt asks, frowning. “You okay?” 

“Who was it?” Yennefer asks. “I need a name, Geralt. The name of the mage would be best, but the name of the lord will do.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I am going to _punish them_ ,” Yennefer grinds out, her hand curling tighter and tighter around the wine glass. “The lord, that’s a given, he’s basically dead already, but the mage who supplied him with a glamour, the mage who _dared_ to bring harm to _my family_? Whoever it is, they will _suffer_.”

Geralt blinks. “Yen—”

“The name, Geralt.” 

Geralt’s mouth is oddly dry. “Ainsborough,” he answers. “Lord Ainsborough.” He pauses, doesn’t think about the heaviness in his limbs and the weight of a stranger’s body across his thighs. “He gave his name as Paulus.”

Yennefer nods, and stands. “Get your things and fetch your horse, Geralt,” she says. 

“Where are we going?” 

“You’re coming to my house,” Yennefer says shortly. “Ciri’s there, she’ll be glad to see you. And then you’re going to stay there until I say you can leave.” 

Geralt frowns. “Yen—”

“ _Geralt_ ,” Yennefer says, and the tone of her voice brooks precisely zero argument. “Get your things, and come with me.” 

Geralt’s tired and confused and more than a little drunk. He figures the best thing is probably just to do as she says. 

Yennefer’s Novigrad house is a tall, narrow townhouse, tucked away in one of the city’s more affluent quarters. There’s a narrow alleyway running down one side that Yennefer gestures Geralt to, and he finds a small stable and a large, flowering garden around the back that he’s pretty sure shouldn’t fit, given the closeness of the architecture and the height of the buildings. He gets Roach settled next to Ciri’s familiar black mare, runs a hand across the soft velvet of her muzzle, and starts to unstrap his saddlebags. 

“Geralt!” Ciri calls, her voice bright and sharp in the muted city air. She comes tripping out of the backdoor of the house, taller than he last saw her, ash-blonde hair bound back in a messy braid, and skips across to him, envelops him in a hug before he can stop her. He doesn’t mind, not really, and he presses a hand to the back of her head, hides his smile in her hair. “Yennefer said you’re staying for a while,” Ciri says, transferring her affections to Roach, pulling gently at her ears and pressing a kiss to her long nose. 

“Apparently,” Geralt rumbles. Most of the alcohol seems to have burned out of his system during the winding trek across the city, just leaving him _tired_ , and he takes his bags down off Roach’s back, slings them over his shoulder. 

Ciri leads him inside. “Yennefer’s portalled somewhere, she didn’t mention where,” she says brightly, “but there’s a room set up upstairs for you and Jaskier.” Geralt can’t hide his flinch, and Ciri looks at him oddly. “Jaskier is coming, right?” 

Geralt doesn’t know how to answer that question. 

The inside of Yennefer’s townhouse is, predictably, bigger than it should be, and he opens doors upstairs to a library, an art studio, and what looks like a small bathhouse before he finds the bedroom he’s looking for. It’s simple, understated, with a rack for his weapons and a stand for Jaskier’s lute, and Geralt is too exhausted to do anything but collapse facedown on the bed and pass out. 

When he wakes, he’s sprawled out across an unfamiliar bed, expensive sheets soft and smooth against his cheek, and for a second he feels bile rising hot and sour in his throat. It subsides when his movements aren’t restricted, when he can shove away from the soft mattress with ease, and he sits on the edge of the bed for a moment, still fully dressed. He’s stiff and sore, alcohol long since burned out of his system, and when he glances out the small window that shows a view of a city that he’s fairly sure isn’t Novigrad, he sees that it’s dark. 

Geralt sighs, strips off his clothes, and goes to take a bath. 

Ciri’s sitting curled up in an armchair when he gets downstairs, hair in the same messy braid, a thick leatherbound book in her lap and a cup of wine on the table next to her. For the briefest moment, Geralt has to fight the urge to take the drink away – but then he remembers that she’s not a little girl anymore, not an innocent wandering the woods, and that she’d give him a run for his money with a blade if he dared to patronise her like that. She looks up as he comes thudding down the stairs. “There’s food and drink on the table,” she says. 

“Where’s Yen?” 

Ciri shrugs, closing the book. “Not back yet,” she says. “She appeared a couple of hours ago, and she was only here for a minute or two before she conjured another portal and disappeared again. I’m pretty sure there was blood in her hair. She looked _pissed_.” 

Geralt hums, and takes a seat at the table. There’s half a roast chicken and a plate of various vegetables in a thick mushroom sauce, along with a tall stein of beer and a small honeycake for dessert. It’s better food than he’s eaten in weeks—since midsummer, as a matter of fact, since the banquet, since he ate and drank with Jaskier’s voice swirling bright and laughing through the rafters—and he tucks in. If his stomach is a little turned at the memory, he pushes it to one side and drinks his beer. 

Ciri’s watching him. “Is it true?” she asks, softer. “About this Ainsborough fuck?” 

Geralt pauses, just for a second, then rips a leg off the chicken. “Yen told you.” 

“Some,” Ciri confirms. “Not everything.”

Shame and guilt needle bitterly through Geralt’s stomach at the idea of his fucking _betrayal_ being made public like that. “She shouldn’t have.”

Ciri watches him, gaze flat and oddly bare. “If anyone would understand, it would be us, Geralt,” she says. “Me and Yennefer. Not that it’s happened to me, but…” She trails off, reaches for her wine, takes a drink. Geralt can smell it from the other side of the room, slicking angry and bitter across the back of his throat. “Well,” Ciri says, and offers him a crooked smile. “We’re women. We get it.” 

“There’s nothing to _get_ ,” Geralt says flatly, and picks flesh off the chicken bones with his fingers. “It’s done. It’s over.” The shock in Jaskier’s eyes flashes in his memory, just for a second, and the way he pulled away from Geralt’s touch – disgusted, dismayed. He was always too good, Geralt knew that, too good for _him_ , so pure and fucking _light_ that he could only be dirtied by Geralt’s touch. The only thing a witcher knows how to do is hurt. 

Ciri’s just looking at him, a look in her eyes that he doesn’t recognise. “You know we’re here for you,” she says. “Me and Yennefer. And Jaskier will be, too, when he gets here.” 

“Jaskier isn’t coming,” Geralt says, voice tight in his throat. 

Ciri doesn’t respond to that, just opens the leatherbound book again, and starts reading. 

Geralt stays awake for a long time, sitting on the back doorstep, watching the soft swish of Roach’s tail and the slow spiral of the stars in the late summer sky. Ciri mumbles her goodnight a little before midnight, padding upstairs with quiet steps, and Geralt listens as she shifts around in her room, a room where the window probably looks out across a different city, a different time, a different place. 

It’s the small hours of the morning before the air floods with that distinctive ozone tang and a portal opens up in the garden, spitting Yennefer out into the cool Novigrad air. Her breathing is normal and her heart beats at its usual steady pace, a little slower than a normal human’s but still hummingbird-fast next to a witcher’s, and Geralt raises his hand in greeting. It’s only then that he notices the slick of blood down her cheek, the gore staining the skirts of her gown, the slump in her shoulders that speaks of energy-sapping magics. “You hurt?” he asks, gruff and quiet. 

“No,” Yennefer answers shortly. “But they are.” She stands in the garden for a moment, studying him, then says, “I’m going to take a bath. Come with me.” 

“I already bathed.” 

Yennefer snorts, pushes past him. “I know you did,” she says. “You’re not invited to bathe _with_ me, Geralt. I want to talk to you.” 

Geralt figures it’s probably easier not to argue. 

In the bathhouse, which has solid stone floors and water that smells distinctly like it’s coming straight from the hot mineral springs in southern Cintra, Yennefer strips naked without a second thought and submerges herself in the steaming waters. She sighs wordlessly, then glances to Geralt, who takes a seat next to the door. “The soap,” she says, and he passes it to her. She starts cleaning the worst of the blood off her face, scrubbing her skin pink as she does so, then looks at him, eyes dark. “He’s dead, by the way.” 

Something clenches in Geralt’s gut. “Ainsborough?” 

Yennefer nods. “I snapped his neck,” she says, indifferent. “Too impolitic to do it openly, of course, so his courtiers will just have to think that he tripped and fell down the stairs. A more painful end would have been better, but we can’t have everything.” 

Geralt isn’t entirely sure why, but there’s a strange kind of release in his heart. “Did you find whatever mage was helping him?” he asks. 

Yennefer’s lip curls, and she begins soaping up her thick black hair. “I did,” she says. “Some insolent little bitch just out of Aretuza. Thought that she could make a name for herself among the… darker circles of humanity, thought that could be her little _niche_.” She rubs vigorously at her scalp, then leans back, washes the blood and gore out of her hair. “She knew who you were, of course, and she knew whose protection you were under, you and Jaskier both. She just thought that she was better than me. That she could _defend_ herself against me.” 

“I’m assuming from the blood that she was wrong.” 

“You assume correctly,” Yennefer says, flat as steel. “I flayed her.” 

Geralt wrinkles his nose. “Not sure I want to know that.” 

Yennefer’s gaze is hard, and, despite the fact that she’s naked in a bathtub, for a second Geralt feels a sharp frisson of apprehension. “She was party to his depravity,” she says, cold as the ice around Kaer Morhen. “She _facilitated_ that human fuck’s sadistic whims. Her suffering is only just.” 

“Is she dead?” Geralt asks, not sure he wants to know the answer.

Yennefer just smiles at him, rinses the soap out of her hair, and doesn’t reply. 

Unease stirs in Geralt’s heart. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says. 

“I did,” Yennefer answers, taking a sponge from the side of the bath and running it carefully across her skin, cleaning away the last of the blood. “To maintain my own standing, yes, but primarily because I will not allow the people I care about to be hurt.” 

Geralt’s jaw tightens. “I’m sure Jaskier will appreciate the gesture.” 

Sadness flashes in Yennefer’s violet eyes, just for a moment. “I’m not just talking about Jaskier,” she says quietly. 

“I’m fine,” Geralt says, brusque and short and braying. 

“I don’t think you are, Geralt,” Yennefer says, soaping the sponge across the nape of her neck. 

Geralt grits his teeth. “ _Jaskier’s_ the one who’s hurting,” he says, pushing to his feet, hands fisted at his sides. “ _He’s_ the one who deserves your sympathy, Yen, not me. _He’s_ the one who was beaten bloody, beaten raw, dumped by the side of the road for some… minor mistake he didn’t even realise he’d committed. All I did was hurt him more.” 

The sponge still in Yennefer’s hand, and she sits there in the steaming waters, studying him with those keen, bright eyes. “You actually believe that,” she says softly. “That’s the worst part about this. You actually believe what you’re saying to me right now.” 

“What else would I believe?” Geralt snaps. 

“The truth,” Yennefer says. “The truth how I see it, Geralt, not how you see it with your fucked-up witcher emotions.” She watches him a moment longer. “You must know, Geralt,” she says finally. “You _must_.” 

Geralt feels his heart beating louder in his chest. “This isn’t about me.” 

“Geralt—”

“ _Yen_ ,” Geralt snaps. 

Yennefer just stares him, eyes sharp in the soft light of the bathhouse. 

Geralt turns his back, and leaves. 

Yennefer doesn’t say anything in the morning, doesn’t try to draw him into conversations he doesn’t want to understand, doesn’t make obscure hints and veiled references. She acts normally—at least, as normally as she ever does—and has a long conversation with Ciri about Redanian politics that Geralt only follows about half of. The two of them practice their spellcraft together, because Ciri might be older, now, might have been learning how to control the power that bubbles up in her veins for years and years, but she’s still not perfect, still not as good as Yennefer. Geralt sits in an armchair by the empty fireplace and watches silently, listening to the hum of their conversation and the thrum of their power instead of the odd numbness that sits in his gut. 

Yennefer’s gaze lingers on him, occasionally, but it’s no more than that. 

Geralt doesn’t mean to stay. He means to get going by the end of that first full day, means to set off back out into the world, go hunt down a contract, earn himself enough to last a few more weeks of travelling by himself – but somehow the day rolls on, and it’s nighttime again, and then it’s the next day, and then it’s the next. 

He sits in that armchair by the unlit fire and feels something stabilising in his chest. 

Geralt’s been staying in that townhouse in Novigrad for over two weeks when Yennefer sweeps a light cloak around her shoulders against the early September cool and goes into town. She doesn’t say when she’ll be back, and Geralt spends the afternoon in the garden with Ciri, just talking, seeing to their horses, sparring lazily, sitting in the cool, crisp air. It’s peaceful. It’s quiet. 

“How long will you stay here?” Ciri asks as evening starts to draw its cloak over the city, and Geralt just runs his fingers through the tangles in Roach’s mane and doesn’t answer. 

It’s already evening when Yennefer gets back, her footsteps a little heavier, her voice a little louder in that particular way that means she’s drunk just enough to be merrier than usual. Geralt hears her laugh from out in the garden, piercingly loud, and words that are too soft to make out – and then another voice, a man’s voice, rich with affection and humour and just the faintest dash of heartbreak. 

Geralt’s nostrils flare wide, and he thinks about a midsummer banquet and a cup of wine in his hand. 

Ciri rests her hand on his shoulder, fingers squeezing lightly enough to bring him back to the present. “Stay here,” she says, and goes inside. 

Geralt sits on the grass and listens to the quiet of the evening. 

“ _Ciri_ ,” Jaskier says, his voice bright and joyous. “I didn’t know you were here! It’s good to see you.” – and there are other words, other greetings, warm and loving, but then his dark shape is silhouetted in the doorway and all the words die in Geralt’s throat. 

Jaskier’s frozen, one hand steadying himself against the doorframe, the other loose at his side. It’s dark enough that Geralt can imagine for a second that he hasn’t seen him, that he’ll just go, that Geralt won’t need to see that hurt, that _pain_ again – but then Jaskier takes a stumbling step towards him, and he says, “Geralt.” 

Geralt doesn’t know what to say. 

Jaskier’s shoulders slump. “Sorry,” he says, so quiet Geralt can barely hear him. “Yennefer didn’t tell me you were here. I’ll go.” 

The road is so fucking empty without him. “Jaskier,” Geralt grinds out, and Jaskier freezes again, startled, indecisive. “Stay.”

Jaskier doesn’t move for a long moment. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me,” he says eventually, barely more than a whisper.

Geralt frowns. “Why wouldn’t I want to see you?” 

Jaskier takes a staggering step towards him, arms rigid at his sides, shoulders hunched. He’s dressed in a doublet that Geralt doesn’t recognise, deep plum with gold detailing, metallic threads dancing around his wrists and neck. “It was my fault,” he says, breaking, broken. “All of it, Geralt, it was _my fucking fault_.” 

Geralt’s on his feet before he really knows what’s doing. “No, Jaskier,” he says, and Jaskier’s face is in shadow, deep in the darkness of the evening, but he can read him like a book out of Yennefer’s fucking library anyway. “You did nothing wrong. You didn’t know what that fucker was going to do to you.” 

“To _me?_ ” Jaskier practically spits – and, no, wait, that’s not right. He’s angry, yes, but he’s not angry at Geralt. There’s loathing in his voice, thick and dark, but it’s not directed at Geralt _at all_. “I couldn’t give less of a shit about what he did _to me_ , Geralt. I care about what he did _to you_ – what he did to you _because of me_.” 

Geralt frowns, steps forward, close enough that he can practically feel the vibration thrumming in Jaskier’s bones. “He had you _beaten_ ,” he says. “He had you beaten and dumped you by the side of the road for something that wasn’t your fault. And you had to watch me _fuck him_. You had to watch me _betray you_.” 

“What are you talking about?” Jaskier says, sheer astonishment a forest fire in his voice. “Geralt, I had to watch him _rape_ you.” 

Geralt blinks. “What?” 

Jaskier’s breast is heaving. “I tried to do something to stop him,” he says. “I really did. But I’m not strong, and whatever he did to you, whatever he dosed you with, you couldn’t hear me, no matter what I said. And shit, I mean, he _looked_ like me, it was all kinds of fucked up – and it was all my _fucking_ fault.” 

“He didn’t,” Geralt says, but can’t quite finish the sentence. He tries again. “He didn’t – rape me, Jaskier.” 

“You said it yourself,” Jaskier says, voice hollow. “You didn’t want what he made you do. You didn’t want _him_.” 

“I fucked him,” Geralt says, short, flat. “He didn’t fuck me. That’s not rape.” 

Jaskier breathes in sharply, and his hands come up instinctively to frame Geralt’s face – except he stops himself before he touches, pulls away, his palms hovering above Geralt’s shoulders. “You didn’t want it,” he says. “The… _mechanics_ of it don’t matter. _That’s_ what matters.”

Geralt reaches for Jaskier’s hands, brings them to his face, presses his lute-calloused fingers against his cheeks. His breath is coming faster for some reason, tight in his chest. “You left,” he says, because it’s all he can think to say. 

“I didn’t think you wanted me to stay,” Jaskier answers, his fingertips sliding into Geralt’s hair, his breath warm against Geralt’s lips. “It was my fault, all of it. I thought you wanted me _gone_.” He’s quiet, just for a moment. “I would have wanted me gone,” he says, softer. 

“Never,” Geralt growls.

Jaskier’s breathing is loud in the quiet. “You thought I blamed you,” he says, sickness blazing in his words. “Gods, Geralt, you thought that, what, you _cheated_ on me? That that was why I left?” He’s shaking his head, frantic, fevered. “No, gods, no, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think.” He laughs, short and bitter. “Fuck, you and your messed-up witcher way of looking at things. You didn’t hurt me, Geralt, of course you didn’t – you didn’t do anything wrong.” 

There’s a tightness coiled in Geralt’s gut, so close to snapping. “I should have known,” he spits. “I should have known he wasn’t you. Your smell. Your voice.” 

“You did _nothing wrong_ ,” Jaskier presses. “Geralt, none of this is your fault. Tell me you know that, gods, _please_ tell me you know that.” 

Geralt surges forward, pulls Jaskier close and kisses him, kisses him because he’s too close not to, kisses him because it’s the best way he knows to shut him up and because he doesn’t think he can have this conversation any longer. Jaskier kisses back, just as desperate, just as needy, and just for a second Geralt remembers lips that tasted the same, a body that felt the same, a heart that beat the same rhythm under his rough, calloused hands. A shudder runs down his spine, unbidden, and he breaks away, buries his face in Jaskier’s neck, holds him so tight it must be painful, listens to the creak in Jaskier’s ribs and the tears in his voice, breathes in his scent and doesn’t remember. 

Jaskier’s arms are solid and warm around his shoulders, holding him close. “This is not your fault,” he says again, quieter, a whisper in the wind. 

“Yen killed him,” Geralt blurts out. “Ainsborough.” 

Jaskier’s fingers stroke through his hair, unceasing, and he sighs. “ _This_ is why I made friends with a sorceress,” he says, the thinnest thread of a joke in his voice. “To solve all my problems with magical violence.” 

“She flayed his mage.” 

“Of course she did,” Jaskier says, and laughs, a bitter, choked sound. “If only she’d been around for the main event.” 

Geralt’s fingers tighten in the fabric of Jaskier’s plum doublet, and he straightens up, studies Jaskier’s face, the tears on his cheeks, the brightness of his eyes in the dark. “I should have protected you,” he says shortly. “That’s what I was there for.” 

Jaskier laughs again, then bends his neck, presses his forehead against Geralt’s. “How anyone could think you a monster is beyond me,” he whispers, soft and sacred. “I’m so sorry, Geralt. For what happened, but also for leaving you like that. I was wrong, I was stupid.”

Geralt tilts his chin forward, catches Jaskier’s lips in a soft kiss. “It’s okay.” 

Jaskier snorts. “It’s definitely not okay.” 

“Then I forgive you.” 

Jaskier makes a muted noise in the back of his throat, an animal noise, pain and sorrow. “Geralt, you don’t even really believe what it is you’re forgiving me _for_.” 

“It’s you,” Geralt says, voice gruff around the words he’s so bad at saying. “I always forgive you.” 

“Fuck you, you bastard,” Jaskier says, jaw tight, fingers tight in Geralt’s hair. “How are _you_ the emotionally stable one in this situation?” 

Geralt doesn’t think about the way that the smell of wine turns his stomach, doesn’t think about the way that the expensive sheets on Yennefer’s beds sometimes make his skin crawl, doesn’t think about the way that that first press of Jaskier’s lips against his made him shiver, made his heart twist. He just kisses Jaskier again, this time without fear, without pain, kisses him as an apology and as an act of forgiveness and, just maybe, as the beginnings of acknowledgement. 

They go inside, after a little while, not exactly hand in hand but not far from it. Jaskier doesn’t seem to want to leave Geralt’s side, his fingers lingering on his wrist, their shoulders bumping with every movement that Geralt makes, and, if Geralt’s honest, he can’t say he’s exactly sorry. The contact is reassuring, even if Geralt can feel how Jaskier’s still trembling, still unsteady against him – but that doesn’t matter, that doesn’t matter at all, because they’re here, they’re together, and fuck anyone who tries to pull them apart. 

Yennefer and Ciri are waiting for them inside, deep in a quiet conversation that stops the moment they come in from the back garden. Yennefer takes Jaskier by the hand without a word, pulls him away, sits him down on the sofa and hands him a bowl of goulash. “Eat,” she says, eyeing his pale face. “You look like you’re about to fall over.” 

The smile that Jaskier flashes her isn’t his usual beaming grin, but it’s better than nothing. “Maybe if you’d _warned me_ before dragging me back here,” he gripes, digging the offered spoon into the bowl, “then I’d be a little less blindsided by the whole emotional reunion situation.” 

“Would you have come if you’d known?” Yennefer asks drily, eyebrow raised. 

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Jaskier observes primly, and takes a mouthful.

Ignoring them as they settle into their customary gentle bickering, Ciri pushes Geralt to sit on the floor in front of her armchair, and, when he’s leaning comfortably back against her knees, she starts freeing his hair from its tie. She doesn’t ask permission, doesn’t pause before she touches him, doesn’t move with shaking hands, no, she just pulls his hair loose, runs her fingers through the silver-white strands, working out the tangles that the breeze and Jaskier’s fear have created, then starts to braid. Geralt lets her, watching Yennefer and Jaskier snipe back and forth as Ciri’s nimble fingers tug gently at his scalp, and there’s a sourness slicked across the back of his tongue, still, but the smell of the goulash in Jaskier’s spoon is enough to mute the taste for now. 

“Hungry?” Yennefer asks, eyebrow raised.

“I could eat,” Geralt answers, and she fetches him a bowl of goulash, too. 

Jaskier furrows his forehead, sits deeper back into the sofa’s plush cushions. “Who would have thought?” he says. “Yennefer of Vengerberg, fetching and carrying like a serving girl.” 

Yennefer sits back down on the sofa next to him. “Don’t push it, bard,” she says, no real heat in her voice. “I could kill you with a snap of my fingers.” 

“You won’t, though,” Jaskier says. “I’d drop this bowl if I died, and then you’d get goulash all over your sofa.” 

Yennefer shrugs. “I can clean the sofa.” 

Jaskier makes an affronted noise.

Geralt just eats the goulash as Ciri slowly, carefully braids his hair. 

The night settles over them, quiet and peaceful. Yennefer goes to bed first, kicking Jaskier’s feet and squeezing Geralt’s shoulder lighter, and then Jaskier and Geralt talk softly as Ciri does and undoes and redoes the braids in Geralt’s hair. She tires after a while, slides to the floor next to Geralt and hugs him tight, then heads upstairs without looking back – and then it’s just the two of them, sitting opposite each other, studying each other even as they both try not to look like that’s what they’re doing. 

“We should probably sleep,” Jaskier says eventually. 

Geralt hums and starts to get to his feet.

Jaskier just watches him, unmoving. “I can stay down here if you want,” he says awkwardly. “The sofa’s comfy enough, and I’ve got a blanket in my pack.” 

Geralt stares at him like he’s an idiot. “Don’t be a fool,” he says, gruff as he can manage. 

Jaskier doesn’t move. “You sure?” 

“I’m fucking _sure_ ,” Geralt snaps. 

Jaskier’s mouth closes with a snap, and he nods. 

Jaskier fusses around their room, settling his lute into its stand with a pleased noise, unpacking as many of his flamboyantly-coloured outfits as he deems necessary and generally making the understated room louder, brighter, more like a home than an empty space for sleeping. Geralt realises pretty quickly that he’s delaying, putting off the inevitable, but he doesn’t have the words to address that particular issue so instead he just strips, sliding under the covers in just his smallclothes. He feels the familiar itch of memory at the softness of the sheets, but he dismisses it, puts it to one side. “Jaskier,” he says, as Jaskier rearranges his little row of oils and vials for the third time. “I know you’re tired. Get in the bed.” 

“Sure,” Jaskier says, his smile strained. He toes off his boots, shrugs out of his doublet and trousers, keeps his undershirt on, then sits down on the side of the bed, slow and careful. The mattress dips under his weight, the expensive sheets are soft and crackling against Geralt’s skin, and Geralt pauses, breathes in the smell of Jaskier’s sweat, the lingering traces of the goulash, the scent of the plum doublet’s unfamiliar fabric. “Geralt?” Jaskier asks, pausing, hesitant. 

Geralt growls at that uncertainty, grabs Jaskier, hauls him close. They fit together like they always do, skin warm, breaths soft, Geralt’s arm around Jaskier’s shoulders, Jaskier’s thrown across Geralt’s waist, and if Geralt can feel the tension in every line of body even after he’s fallen asleep, well, he can’t say that he’s any different. 

When Geralt wakes in the morning, the first thing he feels is an unexpected heaviness across his hips. The panicked instinct that surges up in his half-awake mind is to _get it the fuck off_ – but then he forces himself to still, forces himself to calm, because no, it’s just Jaskier’s thigh, just Jaskier’s unstoppable habit of sprawling across whatever soft surface he finds himself sleeping on. It’s just Jaskier, who shifts against him, his face tucked into Geralt’s neck, breathing damp and hot against his skin. 

_Geralt, I had to watch him_ rape _you._

The words don’t sit right with him, but he’s not sure that that means they aren’t true. 

Jaskier wakes a little while later, blinking sleep out of his eyes, his fingers slowly furling and unfurling against Geralt’s chest. “Geralt,” he sighs, and Geralt reaches up, catches his hand before he can wake fully, before he can pull away. Jaskier stills for a moment, looks up at him, blue eyes bright in the soft morning light. “I missed you,” he says, offering an awkward smile. 

Geralt hums. “Missed you, too.” 

Jaskier’s quiet for a moment. “I know you’ll probably shove me out of bed for saying it again,” he says softly, tangling his finger’s into Geralt’s, “but I want you to know that none of this is your fault.” 

Geralt stiffens. “Jaskier…”

“I’m done, I’m done,” Jaskier says. “I’ll stop.” 

Geralt holds him still, shakes his head. “Don’t,” he says, then pauses. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, doesn’t know what he wants to think, but he’s not an idiot. He knows that something isn’t right, knows that he shouldn’t be flinching from the smell of wine and the weight of Jaskier’s thigh, and he doesn’t know how to fix it but he sure as fuck knows that _ignoring_ it isn’t going to help anyone. “You don’t have to stop,” he says, his voice rough – and then he adds, because it feels like it needs to be said, “It’s not your fault, either.”

Jaskier studies him for a long moment. “Sometimes arsehole lords are just arsehole lords,” he says eventually, and Geralt feels something settle in his chest, warm and level. He hums his agreement, bringing his hand up to card through Jaskier’s hair, and Jaskier keeps on looking at him, eyes so fucking blue, and says, “I love you. Not that that fixes it, but I do.” 

Geralt hums, words caught in his throat. 

“Can I kiss you?” Jaskier asks. 

“You don’t need to ask,” Geralt says. 

“I _want_ to ask,” Jaskier answers. “So can I?” 

“Yes,” Geralt says, and he doesn’t want to admit it even to himself, but his heart beats easier in his chest for it. Jaskier kisses him gently, softly, tender and careful, and then Geralt slides his hand deeper into his hair, pulls him closer, full of heat and spit and need. Jaskier makes a noise of surprise but doesn’t protest, doesn’t object, lets Geralt roll on top of him and pin him in place, lets Geralt kiss him with a fervour neither of them expected, lets him take what he needs and holds him as he does. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt grinds out, knees braced either side of Jaskier’s thighs, hands cupping his face, chests pressed flush together. 

Jaskier’s hands are flat against his shoulderblades, warm and solid. “Geralt,” he says, eyelashes fluttered closed, forehead pressed to Geralt’s temple. Geralt can feel the warm slick of his tears against his cheek. “Fuck, Geralt, I’m sorry.” 

Geralt doesn’t speak, doesn’t answer, but the sourness in his heart lessens, ever so slightly. 

They stay like that for a long time, wound so close it’s almost impossible to tell where one of them ends and the other begins. Jaskier combs out the remnants of Ciri’s braids with shaking fingertips, whispering words that Geralt doesn’t listen to but nonetheless hears in his soul, and Geralt presses his lips to Jaskier’s neck, to his hair, to his shoulders, smelling, tasting, remembering. The stains of the beating he took are all but faded now, the bruises long gone, only a slight crook to his nose and a smattering of fading pink scars remaining across his body. Geralt noses across them all, the scrape just below his hairline, the cut on his jaw, the gash in his sternum, and in the end, he kisses him again, somehow soft and yet bruising all at the same time. 

“Love you,” he murmurs against the stubbled skin of Jaskier’s jaw, and Jaskier’s right, it doesn’t fix the unease in his mind, it doesn’t fix the sourness on the back of his tongue, it doesn’t fix it _at all_ – but maybe it’s a place to start. 

Jaskier burrows into his embrace, warm in the soft scratch of Yennefer’s expensive sheets, and Geralt does his best to forget himself in the rapidfire patter of his thudding human heart.


End file.
